Hybrid Entrepreneurship as the Pursuit of Valued Forms of Work

Abstract

While part-time entrepreneurship dominates startups, entrepreneurship research largely assumes that ventures are the entrepreneurs’ primary work activity. Theory on hybrid entrepreneurship, usually inferring part-time entrepreneurs’ motivations, sees hybrids either as a learning stage in a path to fulltime entrepreneurship or as marginalized players, victims of a fractured employment market. Yet. surprisingly little is known about why and how individuals sustain their entrepreneurial ventures in non-transitional hybrid forms. This article, based on a multi case study approach, provides foundations for a more nuanced theoretical understanding of hybrid entrepreneurship. Specifically, it proposes a decision-making process that explains how, despite their similar mixed motivations to fulltime entrepreneurs, hybrid conditions can shield part-time ventures from market demands, allowing these entrepreneurs to resolve trade-offs and tensions differently and to pursue valued forms of work. The model provides answers to why constrained individuals ‘prefer’ receiving nonmonetary benefits as hybrids rather than as fulltime entrepreneurs and deciphers a phenomenon unattended by previous studies: reverse transitions from fulltime self-employment to a hybrid form.